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5 Simple Habits To Adopt In The New Year To Achieve More Success

As human beings, we are programmed for growth. This means that we will always be seeking to be, do, experience and have more in life.

In order to make this year better than last year, one of the critical steps we must take is to review our previous year so that we can extract the lessons we learned and apply them for more success this year.

The best way to ensure we execute the right behaviours and actions to achieve more success is to adopt some new habits.

While it may be very tempting to list down many new habits we’d like to develop, it can cause us to feel overwhelmed, which could result in us abandoning these habits quickly.

Therefore, it is more beneficial to start off with just a few habits and progressively add more once we start embedding some of these new habits.

Every year, I aim to add three to four new empowering habits that I think will be most valuable for me during the year. The best part about this is that once these habits are embedded, we will continue to reap the benefits as long as those habits are important to us.

Here are five simple habits to consider adopting this year which will help us achieve more success and joy. None of these habits require strenuous work — all that is required is some investment of time and a commitment to stick with it for around 30 days so that the habits are locked in.

Practice being silent and still. It may seem counterintuitive but one of the best ways to speed up success is to actually practice being calm. When we’re calm, we slow down the noise in our minds and can start listening to our inner voice, which is always guiding us in the right direction. One of the most effective ways to practice being silent is via meditation and also by taking slow, deep breaths. A small investment of at least 15 minutes daily will reap huge rewards over time.

Eliminate all unnecessary busywork. One of our goals should always be to remove clutter and all activities that do not inspire us. This is why it is really important we get clear on what is our life’s work — our mission or our purpose in life so that we can align all our activities with our highest value work. When we are doing work that is meaningful, we’re less likely to feel stressed, burdened or feel overworked because we’re doing work that matters.

Turn around obstacles as quickly as possible. Obstacles or problems are a sign of life. The more successful we become, the bigger the problems we will face. Whenever we face problems, rather than slowing down or giving up on what we want, we should see them as an opportunity to broaden our perspective. Questions we can ask to start turning things around include, What does this situation make possible now? or What is the opportunity in this experience? Asking more empowering questions will force us to look at our situations from new perspectives.

Take at least one effective action daily towards a major goal. Some of our goals can seem too big or too far away, which can often be a little demotivating. In order to feel like we are making progress, one habit that will be hugely beneficial is to take one action. Ideally, we want to take more than one action each day but that may not be practical or realistic. So the absolute minimum is one action. We can program this into our phones as a reminder daily.

Start off each day focusing on yourself. The better we take care of ourselves, the better we are able to do our work and serve others. Focusing on ourselves means we are giving ourselves as high a priority as we give others in our lives. This can include taking care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Instead of starting our day dealing with other people’s demands, let’s start making ourselves a priority as well.

These habits will bring huge benefits over the long term if we stick to them. All it takes is a little discipline and a commitment to making these a priority. If we only do these for a few days and then stop, we won’t fully enjoy the benefits these habits will bring. The key is to stick with these initially for at least 30 days.

Action Step: Pick one habit from the list above and set a recurring reminder in your phone (or diary) to apply that habit. It will help initially to do it at the same time each day until it becomes embedded in.